[258] This Spanish Gipsy is reported by Mr. Borrow to have said: “She, however, remembered her blood, and hated my father, and taught me to hate him likewise. When a boy, I used to stroll about the plain, that I might not see my father; and my father would follow me, and beg me to look upon him, and would ask me what I wanted; and I would reply, ‘Father, the only thing I want is to see you dead!’”
This is certainly an extreme instance of the result of the prejudice against the Gipsy race; and no opinion can be formed upon it, without knowing some of the circumstances connected with the feelings of the father, or his relations, toward the mother and the Gipsy race generally. This Gipsy woman seems to have been well brought up by her protector and husband; for she taught her child Gipsy from a MS., and procured a teacher to instruct him in Latin. There are many reflections to be drawn from the circumstances connected with this Spanish Gipsy family, but they do not seem to have occurred to Mr. Borrow.
[259] It is claimed, by some Scottish Gipsies, that there are full-blood Gipsies at Yetholm, but I do not believe it. This, I may venture to say, that there can be no certainty, but, on the contrary, great doubt, on the subject. But, after all, what is a pure Gipsy? Was the race pure when it entered Scotland, or even Europe? The idea is perfectly arbitrary.
[260] It would be interesting to know where these writers got such ideas about the purity of the Gipsy blood. It certainly was not from Mr. Borrow’s account of the Gipsies in Spain, whatever they may have inferred from that work.
[261] An instance of this kind of shuffling is given by Mr. Borrow, in the tenth chapter of the “Romany Rye,” in the person of Ursula, a full or nearly full-blood Gipsy. She confines the crossing of the blood to such instances as when a Gipsy dies and leaves his children to be provided for by “gorgios, trampers, and basket-makers, who live in caravans;” but she says, “I hate to talk of the matter.” When Mr. Borrow asked her, if a Gipsy woman, unless compelled by hard necessity, would have anything to do with a gorgio, she replied, “We are not over-fond of gorgios, and we hate basket-makers and folks that live in caravans.” Here she makes a very important distinction between gorgios, (native English,) and basket-makers and folks that live in caravans, (mixed Gipsies.) She does not deny that a Gipsy woman will intermarry with a native under certain circumstances. A pretty-pure Gipsy, when angry, will very readily call a mixed Gipsy a gorgio, or, indeed, by any other name.
[262] Grellmann evidently alludes to Gipsies of mixed blood, when he writes in the following manner: “Experience shows that the dark colour of the Gipsies, which is continued from generation to generation, is more the effect of education and manner of life than descent. Among those who profess music in Hungary, or serve in the imperial army, where they have learned to pay more attention to order and cleanliness, there are many to be found whose extraction is not at all discernible in their colour.” For my part, I cannot say that such language is applicable to full-blood Gipsies. Still, the change from tented to settled and tidy Gipsydom is apt to show its effects in modifying the complexion of such Gipsies, and to a much greater degree in their descendants.
[263] Mr. Offor, editor of a late edition of Bunyan’s works, writes, in “Notes and Queries,” thus: “I have avoided much intercourse with this class, fearing the fate of Mr. Hoyland, who, being a Quaker, was shot by one of Cupid’s darts from a black-eyed Gipsy girl; and J. S. may do well to be cautious.” Mr. Offor is not far wrong. A Gipsy girl can sometimes fascinate a “white fellow,” as a snake can a bird—make him flutter, and particularly so, should the “little Gipsy” be met with in some such dress as black silks and a white polka. This much can be said of Gipsy women, which cannot be said of all women, that they know their places, and are not apt to usurp the rights of the rajahs; they will even “work the nails off their fingers” to make them feel comfortable.
I should conclude, from what Mr. Offor says, that the Quaker married the Gipsy girl. If children were born of the union, they will be Gipsy-Quakers, or Quaker-Gipsies, whichever expression we choose to adopt.
[264] I have picked up quite a number of Scottish Gipsies of respectable character, from their having gone in their youth, to look at the “old thing.” It is the most natural thing in the world for them to do. What is it to look back to the time of James V., in 1540, when John Faw was lord-paramount over the Gipsies in Scotland? Imagine, then, the natural curiosity of a young Gipsy, brought up in a town, to look at something like the original condition of his ancestors. Such a Gipsy will leave Edinburgh, for example, and travel over the south of Scotland, “casting his sign,” as he passes through the villages, in every one of which he will find Gipsies. Some of these villages are almost entirely occupied by Gipsies. James Hogg is reported, in Blackwood’s Magazine, to say, that Lochmaben is “stocked” with them.
[265] Among the English Gipsies, fair-haired ones are looked upon by the purer sort, or even by those taking after the Gipsy, as “small potatoes.” The consequence is they have to make up for their want of blood, by smartness, knowledge of the language, or something that will go to balance the deficiency of blood. They generally lay claim to the intellect, while they yield the blood to the others. A full or nearly full-blood young English Gipsy looks upon herself with all the pride of a little duchess, while in the company of young male mixed Gipsies. A mixed Gipsy may reasonably be assumed to be more intelligent than one of the old stock, were it only for this reason, that the mixture softens down the natural conceit and bigotry of the Gipsy; while, as regards his personal appearance, it puts him in a more improvable position. Still, a full-blood Gipsy looks up to a mixed Gipsy, if he is anything of a superior man, and freely acknowledges the blood. Indeed, the two kinds will readily marry, if circumstances bring them together. To a couple of such Gipsies I said: “What difference does it make, if the person has the blood, and has his heart in the right place?” “That’s the idea; that’s exactly the idea,” they both replied.
[266] To thoroughly understand how a Gipsy, with fair hair and blue eyes, can be as much a Gipsy as one with black, may be termed “passing the pons assinorum of the Gipsy question.” Once over the bridge, and there are no difficulties to be encountered on the journey, unless it be to understand that a Gipsy can be a Gipsy without living in a tent or being a rogue.
[267] There is a considerable resemblance between Gipsyism, in its harmless aspect, and Freemasonry; with this difference, that the former is a general, while the latter is a special, society; that is to say, the Gipsies have the language, or some of the words, and the signs, peculiar to the whole race, which each individual or class will use for different purposes. The race does not necessarily, and does not in fact, have intercourse with every other member of it; in that respect, they resemble any ordinary community of men. Masonry, as my reader may be aware, is a society of what may be termed “a mixed multitude of good fellows, who are all pledged to befriend and help each other.” The radical elements of Masonry may be termed a “rope of sand,” which the vows of the Order work into the most closely and strongly formed coil of any to be found in the world. But it is altogether of an artificial nature; while Gipsyism is natural—something that, when separated from objectionable habits, one might almost call divine; for it is founded upon a question of race—a question of blood. The cement of a creed is weak, in comparison with that which binds the Gipsies together; for a people, like an individual, may have one creed to-day, and another to-morrow; it may be continually travelling round the circle of every form of faith; but blood, under certain circumstances, is absolute and immutable.
There are many Gipsies Freemasons; indeed, they are the very people to push their way into a Mason’s lodge; for they have secrets of their own, and are naturally anxious to pry into those of others, by which they may be benefited. I was told of a Gipsy who died lately, the Master of a Masons’ Lodge. A friend, a Mason, told me, the other day, of his having entered a house in Yetholm, where were five Gipsies, all of whom responded to his Masonic signs. Masons should therefore interest themselves in, and befriend, the Gipsies.
[268] The principle, or rather fact, here involved, simple as it is in itself, is evidently very difficult of comprehension by the native Scottish mind. Any person understands perfectly well how a Highlander, at the present day, is still a Highlander, notwithstanding the great change that has come over the character of his race. But our Scottish literati seem to have been altogether at sea, in comprehending the same principle as applicable to the Gipsies. They might naturally have asked themselves, whether Gipsies could have procreated Jews; and, if not Jews, how they could have procreated gorgios, (as English Gipsies term natives.) A writer in Blackwood’s Magazine says, in reference to Billy Marshall, a Gipsy chief, to whom allusion has already been made: “Who were his descendants I cannot tell; I am sure he could not do it himself, if he were living. It is known that they were prodigiously numerous; I dare say numberless.” And yet this writer gravely says that “the race is in some risk of becoming extinct(!)” Another writer in Blackwood says: “Their numbers may perhaps have since been diminished, in particular States, by the progress of civilization(!)” We would naturally pronounce any person crazy who would maintain that there were no Highlanders in Scotland, owing to their having “changed their habits.” We could, with as much reason, say the same of those who will maintain this opinion in regard to the Gipsies. There has been a great deal of what is called genius expended upon the Gipsies, but wonderfully little common sense.
As the Jews, during their pilgrimage in the Wilderness, were protected from their enemies by a cloud, so have the Gipsies, in their encrease and development, been shielded from theirs, by a mist of ignorance, which, it would seem, requires no little trouble to dispel.
[269] In Olmstead’s “Journey in the Seaboard Slave States” it is stated, that in Alexandria, Louisiana, when under the Spanish rule, there were “French and Spanish, Egyptians and Indians, Mulattoes and Negroes.” This author reports a conversation which he had with a planter, by which it appears that these Egyptians came from “some of the Northern Islands;” that they spoke a language among themselves, but could talk French and Spanish too; that they were black, but not very black, and as good citizens as any, and passed for white folk. The planter believed they married mostly with mulattoes, and that a good many of the mulattoes had Egyptian blood in them too. He believed these Egyptians had disappeared since the State became part of the Union. Mr. Olmstead remarks: “The Egyptians were probably Spanish Gipsies, though I have never heard of any of them being in America in any other way.”
[270] Mr. Borrow surely cannot mean that a Gipsy ceases to be a Gipsy, when he settles down, and “turns over a new leaf;” and that this “change of habits” changes his descent, blood, appearance, language and nationality! What, then, does he mean, when he says that the Spanish Gipsies have decreased by “a partial change of habits?”
And does an infusion of Spanish blood, implied in a “freer intercourse with the Spanish population,” lead to the Gipsy element being wiped out; or does it lead to the Spanish feeling being lost in Gipsydom? Which is the element to be operated upon—the Spanish or the Gipsy? Which is the leaven? The Spanish element is the passive, the Gipsy the active. As a question of philosophy, the most simple of comprehension, and, above all, as a matter of fact, the foreign element introduced, in detail, into the body of Gipsydom, goes with that body, and, in feeling, becomes incorporated with it, although, in physical appearance, it changes the Gipsy race, so that it becomes “confounded with the residue of the population,” but remains Gipsy, as before. A Spanish Gipsy is a Spaniard as he stands, and it would be hard to say what we should ask him to do, to become more a Spaniard than he is already.
[271] Mr. Borrow mentions, in the twenty-second chapter of the “Bible in Spain,” having met several cavalry soldiers from Granada, Gipsies incog. who were surprised at being discovered to be Gipsies. They had been impressed, but carried on a trade in horses, in league with the captain of their company. They said: “We have been to the wars, but not to fight; we left that to the Busné. We have kept together, and like true Caloré, have stood back to back. We have made money in the wars.”
[272] It would seem that the law in Spain, in regard to the Gipsies, stands pretty much where it did—that is, the people are, in a sense, tolerated, but that the use of their language is prohibited, as may be gathered from an incident mentioned in the ninth chapter of the “Bible in Spain,” by Mr. Borrow.
[273] Paget says these tinkers leave their women and children at home when on their travels. That is not customary with the tribe, although it may be their habit in the Austrian dominions.
[274] “I was one of these verminous ones, one of these great sin-breeders; I infected all the youth of the town where I was born with all manner of youthful vanities. The neighbours counted me so; my practice proved me so: wherefore Christ Jesus took me first, and taking me first, the contagion was much allayed all the town over.”—Bunyan.
[275] “Grand was the repose of his lofty brow, dark eye, and aspect of soft and melancholy meaning. It was a face from which every evil and earthly passion seemed purged. A deep gravity lay upon his countenance, which had the solemnity, without the sternness, of one of our old reformers. You could almost fancy a halo completing its apostolic character.”
[276] Burns alludes to this family, thus: “Passed through the most glorious corn country I ever saw, till I reached Dunbar, a neat little town. Dine with Provost Fall, an eminent merchant, and most respectable character, but indescribable, as he exhibits no marked traits. Mrs. Fall, a genius in painting; fully more clever in the fine arts and sciences than my friend Lady Wauchope, without her consummate assurance of her own abilities.”—Life of Burns, by Robert Chambers.
The crest of the Falls, of Dunbar, was three boars’ heads, couped; that of Baillie, of Lamington, is one boar’s head, couped. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, (1835,) appears the following notice of this family: “A family, of the name of Fall, established themselves at Dunbar, and became, during the last century, the most extensive merchants in Scotland. They were long the chief magistrates of the burgh, and preferred the public good to their own profit. They have left no one to bear their name, not even a stone to tell where they lie; but they will long be remembered for their enterprise and public spirit.” There is apparently a reason for “not even a stone being left to tell where they lie;” for in Hoyland’s “Survey of the Gipsies” appeared the account of Baillie Smith, in which it is said: “The descendants of Faa now take the name of Fall, from the Messrs. Fall, of Dunbar, who, they pride themselves in saying, are of the same stock and lineage;” which seems to have frightened their connexions at being known to be Gipsies.
Let all that has been said of the Falls be considered as their monument and epitaph; so that their memories may be preserved as long as this work exists.
It would be interesting to know who the Captain Fall was, who visited Dunbar, with an American ship-of-war, during the time of Paul Jones. He might have been a descendant of a Gipsy, sent to the plantations, in the olden times. There are, as I have said before, a great many scions of Gipsy Faas, under one name or other, scattered over the world.
[277] Whipping the cat: Tailoring from house to house. The cat is whipped by females, as well as males, in America, in some parts of which the expression is current.
[278] Of the Gipsies at Moscow, the following is the substance of what Mr. Borrow says: “Those who have been accustomed to consider the Gipsy as a wandering outcast . . . . . . will be surprised to learn that, amongst the Gipsies of Moscow, there are not a few who inhabit stately houses, go abroad in elegant equipages, and are behind the higher order of Russians neither in appearance nor mental acquirements. . . . . The sums obtained by the Gipsy females, by the exercise of their art (singing in the choirs of Moscow,) enable them to support their relatives in affluence and luxury. Some are married to Russians; and no one who has visited Russia can but be aware that a lovely and accomplished countess, of the noble and numerous family of Tolstoy is, by birth, a Zigana, and was originally one of the principal attractions of a Romany choir at Moscow.”
This short notice appears unsatisfactory, considering, as Mr. Borrow says, that one of his principal motives for visiting Moscow was to hold communication with the Gipsies. It might have occurred to him to enquire what relation the children of such marriages would bear to Gipsydom generally; that is, would they be initiated in the mysteries, and taught the language, and hold themselves to be Gipsies? It is evident, however, that the Gipsy-drilling process is going on among the Russian nobility.
[279] On his return with his gallant prey, he passed a very large hay-stack. It occurred to the provident laird that this would be extremely convenient to fodder his new stock of cattle; but, as no means of transporting it were obvious, he was fain to take leave of it, with the apostrophe, now become proverbial, “By my saul, had ye but four feet, ye should not stand lang there.” In short, as Froissart says of a similar class of feudal robbers. “Nothing came amiss to them that was not too heavy or too hot.” Sir Walter Scott speaks, in the most jocular manner, of an ancestress who had a curious hand at pickling the beef which her husband stole; and that there was not a stain upon his escutcheon, barring Border theft and high treason.—Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott.
We should never forget that a “hawk’s a hawk,” whether it is a falcon or a mosquito hawk, which is the smallest of all hawks.
[280] Sir Walter Scott makes Fitz-James, in the “Lady of the Lake,” say to Roderick Dhu:
[282] In expatiating on the subject of the Gipsy race always being the Gipsy race, I have had it remarked to me: “Suppose Gipsies should not mention to their children the fact of their being Gipsies.” In that case, I replied, the children, especially if, for the most part, of white blood, would simply not be Gipsies; they would, of course, have some of “the blood,” but they would not be Gipsies if they had no knowledge of the fact. But to suppose that Gipsies should not learn that they are Gipsies, on account of their parents not telling them of it, is to presume that they had no other relatives. Their being Gipsies is constantly talked of among themselves; so that, if Gipsy children should not hear their “wonderful story” from their parents, they would readily enough hear it from their other relatives. This is assuming, however, that the Gipsy mind can act otherwise than the Gipsy mind; which it cannot.
It sometimes happens, as the Gipsies separate into classes, like all other races or communities of men, that a great deal of jealousy is stirred up in the minds of the poorer members of the tribe, on account of their being shunned by the wealthier kind. They are then apt to say that the exclusive members have left the tribe; which, with them, is an undefined and confused idea, at the best, principally on account of their limited powers of reflection, and the subject never being alluded to by the others. This jealousy sometimes leads them to dog these straggling sheep, so that, as far as lies in their power, they will not allow them to leave, as they imagine, the Gipsy fold. [See second note at page 532.]
[283] I very abruptly addressed a French Gipsy, in the streets of New York, thus: “Vous êtes un Romany chiel.” “Oui, monsieur,” was the reply which he, as abruptly, gave me. But, ever afterwards, he got cross, when I alluded to the subject. On one occasion, I gave him the sign, which he repeated, while he asked, with much tartness of manner, “What is that—what does it mean?” This was a roguish Gipsy, and was afterwards lodged in jail.
On one occasion, I met with a German cutler, in a place of business, in New York. I felt sure he was a Gipsy, although the world would not have taken him for one. Catching his eye, I commenced to look around the room, from those present to himself, as if there was to be something confidential between us, and then whispered to him, “Callo chabo,” (Gipsy, or black fellow;) and the effect was instantaneous. I afterwards visited his family, on a Sabbath evening, and took tea with them. They were from Wurtemberg, and appeared very decent people. The mother, a tall, swarthy, fine looking intelligent young woman, said grace, which was repeated by the children, whom I found learning their Sabbath-school lessons. The family regularly attend church. A fair-haired German called, and went to church with the Gipsy himself. What with the appearance of everything about the house, and the fine, clean, and neatly-dressed family of children, I felt very much pleased with my visit.
French and German Gipsies are very shy, owing to the severity of the laws against their race.
[284] Fletcher, of Saltoun, speaks of there being constantly a hundred thousand people in Scotland, leading the life (as Sir Walter Scott describes it,) of “Gipsies, Jockies, or Cairds.” Between the time alluded to and the date of John Faw’s league with James V., a period of 140 years had elapsed; and 174 years from the date of arrival of the race in the country: so that, from the natural encrease of the body, and the large amount of white blood introduced into it, the greater part, if not the whole, of the people mentioned, were doubtless Gipsies. But these Gipsies, according to Sir Walter’s opinion, “died out by a change of habits.” How strange it is that the very first class Scottish minds should have so little understood the philosophy of origin, blood, and descent, and especially as they applied to the Gipsies! For Sir Walter says: “The progress of time, and encrease both of the means of life and the power of the laws, gradually reduced this dreadful evil within more narrow bounds. . . . . Their numbers are so greatly diminished, that, instead of one hundred thousand, as calculated by Fletcher, it would now, perhaps, be impossible to collect above five hundred throughout all Scotland(!)” It is perfectly evident that Sir Walter Scott, in common with many others, never realized the idea, in all its bearings, of what a Gipsy was; or he never could have imagined that those, only, were of the Gipsy race, who followed the tent.
It is very doubtful if Anthonius Gawino, and his tribe, departed with their letter of introduction from James IV. to his uncle, the king of Denmark, in 1506. Having secured the favour of the king of Scots, by this recommendatory notice, he was more apt, by delaying his departure, to secure his position in the country. The circumstances attending the league with his successor, John Faw, show that the tribe had been long in the country; doubtless from as far back as 1506. From 1506 till 1579, with the exception of about one year, during the reign of James V., the tribe, as I have already said, (page 109,) must have encreased prodigiously. The persecutions against the body extended over the reign of James VI., and part of that of Charles I.; for, according to Baron Hume, such was the terror which the executions inspired in the tribe, that, “for the space of more than 50 years from that time, (1624,) there is no trial of an Egyptian;” although our author shows that an execution of a band of them took place in 1636. But “towards the end of that century,” continues Baron Hume, “the nuisance seems to have again become troublesome;” in other words, that from the reign of Charles I. to the accession of William and Mary, the time to which Fletcher’s remark applies, the attention of all being taken up with the troubles of the times, the Gipsies had things pretty much their own way; but when peace was restored, they would be called to strict account.
For all these reasons, it may be said that the 100,000 people spoken of were doubtless Gipsies of various mixtures of blood; so that, at the present day, there ought to be a very large number of the tribe in Scotland. I admit that many of the Scottish Gipsies have been hanged, and many banished to the Plantations; but these would be in a small ratio to their number, and a still smaller to the natural encrease of the body. Suppose that such and such Gipsies were either hanged or banished; so young did they all marry, that, when they were hanged or banished, they might leave behind them families ranging from five to ten children. We may say, of the Scottish Gipsies generally, in days that are past, what a writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, already alluded to, said of Billy Marshall: “Their descendants were prodigiously numerous; I dare say, numberless.” Many of the Scottish Gipsies have migrated to England, as well as elsewhere. In Liverpool, there are many of them, following various mechanical occupations.
[285] Peter Funks & Co.: Mock auctioneers of mock jewelry, &c., &c.
[286] If the real characters of those “lady fortune-tellers,” who flourish so much in the large cities, and publicly profess to reveal all matters in “love and law, health and wealth, losses and crosses,” were to be ascertained, many of them would, in all probability, be found to belong to a superior class of Gipsies. And this may much more be said of the more humble ones, who trust to the gossipping of a class—and that a respectable class of females, for the advertising of their calling. For a certainty, those are Gipsies who stroll about, telling fortunes for dimes, clothes, or old bottles. The advertising members form a very small part of the fraternity. The extent to which such business is patronized, by Americans, of both sexes, and of almost all positions in society is such, that it is doubtful if the English reader would credit it, if it were put on record.
[287] When travelling on the stage, towards Lake Huron, in Canada, I was surprised at finding a Gipsy tent on the road-side, with a man sitting in front of it, engaged in the mysteries of the tinker. I met a camp of Gipsies on a vacant space, beside a clump of trees, in Hamilton, at the head of Lake Ontario, but I deferred visiting them till the following morning. When I returned to the spot, I found that the birds had flown. Feeling disappointed, I began to question a man who kept a toll-bar, immediately opposite to where their tents had been, as to their peculiarities generally; when he said: “They seemed droll kind o’ folk—quite like ourselves—no way foreign; yet I could not understand a word they were saying among themselves.” Shortly after this, a company of them entered a shop, in the same town, to buy tin, when I happened to be in it. I accosted one of the mothers of the company, in an abrupt but bland tone. “You’re a’ Nawkens (Gipsies) I see.”—“Ou ay, we’re Nawkens,” was her immediate reply, accompanied by a smile on her weather-beaten countenance. “You’ll aye speak the language?” I continued. “We’ll ne’er forget that,” she again replied. This seemed to be a company of Gipsies from the Scottish Border; for the woman spoke about the broadest Scotch I ever heard. They dressed well, and bore a good reputation in the neighbourhood.
[288] Mixed Gipsies tell no lies, when they say that they are not Gipsies; for, physiologically speaking, they are not Gipsies, but only partly Gipsies, as regards blood. In every other way they are Gipsies, that is, chabos, calos, or chals.
[289] The people above-mentioned are doubtless Gipsies. According to Grellmann, the race is even to be found in the centre of Africa. Mollien, in his travels to the sources of the Senegal and Gambia, in 1818, says: “Scattered among the Joloffs, we find a people not unlike our Gipsies, and known by the name of Laaubés. Leading a roving life, and without fixed habitation, their only employment is the manufacture of wooden vessels, mortars, and bedsteads. They choose a well-wooded spot, fell some trees, form huts with the branches, and work up the trunks. For this privilege, they must pay a sort of tax to the prince in whose states they thus settle. In general, they are both ugly and slovenly.
“The women, notwithstanding their almost frightful faces, are covered with amber and coral beads, presents heaped on them by the Joloffs, from a notion that the favours, alone, of these women will be followed by those of fortune. Ugly or handsome, all the young Laaubé females are in request among the Negroes.
“The Laaubés have nothing of their own but their money, their tools, and their asses; the only animals on which they travel. In the woods, they make fires with the dung of the flocks. Ranged round the fires, the men and women pass their leisure time in smoking. The Laaubés have not those characteristic features and high stature which mark the Joloffs, and they seem to form a distinct race. They are exempted from all military service. Each family has its chief, but, over all, there is a superior chief, who commands a whole tribe or nation. He collects the tribute, and communicates with such delegates of the king as receive the imposts: this serves to protect them from all vexation. The Laaubés are idolaters, speak the Poula language, and pretend to tell fortunes.”
[290] Bell, in an account of his journey to Pekin, [1721.] says that upwards of sixty Gipsies had arrived at Tobolsky, on their way to China, but were stopped by the Vice-Governor, for want of passports. They had roamed, during the summer season, from Poland, in small parties, subsisting by selling trinkets, and telling fortunes.
[291] Mr. Borrow says, with reference to the Spanish Gipsy language: “Its grammatical peculiarities have disappeared, the entire language having been modified and subjected to the rules of Spanish grammar, with which it now coincides in syntax, in the conjugation of verbs, and in the declension of its nouns.” We might have naturally expected that of the Gipsy language, in the course of four hundred years, from the people speaking it being so much scattered over the country, and coming so much in contact with the ordinary natives. But something different might be looked for, where the Gipsies have not been persecuted, but allowed to live together in a body, as in Hungary. Of the Hungarian Gipsy language, Mr. Borrow says, that in no part of the world is the Gipsy language better preserved than in Hungary; and that the roving bands of Gipsies from that country, who visit France and Italy, speak the pure Gipsy, with all its grammatical peculiarities. He estimates that the Spanish Gipsy language may consist of four or five thousand words; a sufficient number, one might suppose, to serve the purpose of everyday life. A late writer in the Dublin University Magazine estimates that five thousand words would serve the same purpose in the English language. Four thousand words is a very large language for the Gipsies of Spain to possess, in addition to the ordinary one of the country.
[292] I cannot agree with Mr. Borrow, when he says, that the Gipsies “travelled three thousand miles into Europe, with hatred in their hearts towards the people among whom they settled.” In none of the earliest laws passed against them, is anything said of their being other than thieves, cheats, &c., &c. They seem to have been too politic to commit murder; moreover, it appears to have been foreign to their disposition to do aught but obtain a living in the most cunning manner they could. There is no necessary connection between purloining one’s property and hating one’s person. As long as the Gipsies were not hardly dealt with, they could, naturally, have no actual hatred towards their fellow-creatures. Mr. Borrow attributes none of the spite and hatred of the race towards the community to the severity of the persecutions to which it was exposed, or to that hard feeling with which society has regarded it. These, and the example of the Spaniards, doubtless led the Gitanos to shed the blood of the ordinary natives.
[293] I accidentally got into conversation with an Irishman, in the city of New York, about secret societies, when he mentioned that he was a member of a great many such, indeed, “all of them,” as he expressed it. I said there was one society of which he was not a member, when he began to enumerate them, and at last came to the Zincali. “What,” said I, “are you a member of this society?” “Yes,” said he; “the Zincali, or Gipsy.” He then told me that there are many members of this society in the city of New York; not all members of it, under that name, but of its outposts, if I may so express it. The principal or arch-Gipsy for the city, he said, was a merchant, in —— street, who had in his possession a printed vocabulary, or dictionary, of the language, which was open only to the most thoroughly initiated. In the course of our conversation, it fell out that the native American Gipsy referred to at page 420 was one of the thoroughly initiated; which circumstance explained a question he had put to me, and which I evaded, by saying that I was not in the habit of telling tales out of school.
In Spain, as we have seen, a Gipsy taught her language to her son from a MS. I doubt not there are MS. if not printed, vocabularies of the Gipsy language among the tribe in Scotland, as well as in other countries.
[294] Among the various means by which the name of Gipsy can be raised up, it may be mentioned, that beginning the word with a capital is one of no little importance. The almost invariable custom with writers, in that respect, has been as if they were describing rats and mice, instead of a race of men.
[295] This sensation, in the minds of the Gipsies, of the perpetuity of their race, creates, in a great measure, its immortality. Paradoxical as it may appear, the way to preserve the existence of a people is to scatter it, provided, however, that it is a race thoroughly distinct from others, to commence with. When, by the force of circumstances, it has fairly settled down into the idea that it is a people, those living in one country become conscious of its existence in others; and hence arises the principal cause of the perpetuity of its existence as a scattered people.
[296] The fact of these Indians, and the aboriginal races found in the countries colonised by Europeans, disappearing so rapidly, prevents our regarding them with any great degree of interest. This circumstance detracts from that idea of dignity which the perpetuity and civilization of their race would inspire in the minds of others.
[297] A writer in the Penny Cyclopædia illustrates this absurd idea, in very plain terms, when he says: “In England, the Gipsies have much diminished, of late years, in consequence of the enclosure of lands, and the laws against vagrants.” Sir Walter Scott’s idea of the Gipsies has been followed in a pictorial history of Scotland, lately issued from the Scottish press.
[298] The following singular remarks appeared in a very late number of Chambers’ Journal, on the subject of the Gipsies of the Danube: “As the wild cat, the otter, and the wolf, generally disappear before the advance of civilization, the wild races of mankind are, in like manner and degree, gradually coming to an end, and from the same causes(!) The waste lands get enclosed, the woods are cut down, the police becomes yearly more efficient, and the Pariahs vanish with their means of subsistence. [Where do they go to?] In England, there are, at most, 1,500 Gipsies(!) Before the end of the present century, they will probably be extinct over Western Europe(!)”
It is perfectly evident that the world, outside of Gipsydom, has to be initiated in the subject of the Gipsies, as in the first principles of a science, or as a child is instructed in its alphabet. And yet, the above-mentioned writer takes upon himself to chide Mr. Borrow, in the matter of the Gipsies.
[299] I leave out of view various scattered nations in Asia.
[300] It is interesting to hear the Gipsies speak of their race “taking of” this or the other race. Said an English Gipsy, to me, with reference to some Gipsies of whom we were speaking: “They take of the Arabians.”
[301] There is scarce a part of the habitable world where they are not to be found; their tents are alike pitched on the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of the Himalayan hills; and their language is heard at Moscow and Madrid, in the streets of London and Stamboul. They are found in all parts of Russia, with the exception of the Government of St. Petersburg, from which they have been banished. In most of the provincial towns, they are to be found in a state of half civilization, supporting themselves by trafficking in horses, or by curing the disorders incidental to those animals. But the vast majority reject this manner of life, and traverse the country in bands, like the ancient Hamaxobioi; the immense grassy plains of Russia affording pasturage for their herds of cattle, on which, and the produce of the chase, they chiefly depend for subsistence.—Borrow.
[302] Considering what is popularly understood to be the natural disposition and capacity of the Gipsies, we would readily conclude that to turn innkeepers would be the most unlikely of all their employments; yet that is very common. Mahommed said, “If the mountain will not come to us, we will go to the mountain.” The Gipsies say, “If we do not go to the people, the people must come to us;” and so they open their houses of entertainment.
[303] The following is a description of a superior Spanish Gipsy, in 1584, as quoted by Mr. Borrow, from the memoirs of a Spaniard, who had seen him: “At this time, they had a count, a fellow who spoke the Castilian idiom with as much purity as if he had been a native of Toledo. He was acquainted with all the ports of Spain, and all the difficult and broken ground of the provinces. He knew the exact strength of every city, and who were the principal people in each, and the exact amount of their property; there was nothing relative to the state, however secret, that he was not acquainted with; nor did he make a mystery of his knowledge, but publicly boasted of it.”
[304] I should suppose that this was Captain Gordon who behaved himself like a prince, at the North Queensferry. See page 172.
[305] The only part of the religion of the Jews having an origin prior to the establishment of the Mosaic law was circumcision, which was termed the covenant made by God with Abraham and his seed. (Gen. xvii. 10-14.) The abolition of idols, and the worship of God alone, are presumed, although not expressed. The Jews lapsed into gross idolatry while in Egypt, but were not likely to neglect circumcision, as that was necessary to maintain a physical uniformity among the race, but did not enter into the wants, and hopes, and fears, inherent in the human breast, and stimulated by the daily exhibition of the phenomena of its existence. The second table of the moral law was, of course, written upon the hearts of the Jews, in common with those of the Gentiles. (Rom. ii. 14, 15.)
[306] It is an unnecessary stretch upon the belief in the Scriptures, to ask consent to the abstract proposition that the Jews, while in Egypt, encreased from seventy souls to “about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, besides children,” at the time of the Exodus. Following a pastoral life, in a healthy and fertile country, and inspired with the prophecy delivered to Abraham, as to his numberless descendants, the whole bent of the mind of the Jews was to multiply their numbers; and polygamy and concubinage being characteristic of the people, there is no reason to doubt that the Jews encreased to the number stated. The original emigrants, doubtless, took with them large establishments of bondmen and bondwomen, and purchased others while in Egypt; and these being circumcised, according to the covenant made with Abraham, would sooner or later become, on that account alone, part of the nation; and much more so by such amalgamation as is set forth by Rachel and Leah giving their maids to Jacob to have children by them. Abraham was, at best, the representative head of the Jewish nation, composed, as that was originally, of elements drawn from the idolatrous tribes surrounding him and his descendants.
[307] Tacitus gives the following glowing account of the destruction of the Druids, in the island of Anglesey: “On the opposite shore stood the Britons, closely embodied, and prepared for action. Women were seen rushing through the ranks in wild disorder; their apparel funereal; their hair loose to the wind, in their hands flaming torches, and their whole appearance resembling the frantic rage of the Furies. The Druids were ranged in order, with hands uplifted, invoking the gods, and pouring forth horrible imprecations. The novelty of the sight struck the Romans with awe and terror. They stood in stupid amazement, as if their limbs were benumbed, riveted to one spot, a mark for the enemy. The exhortation of the general diffused new vigour through the ranks, and the men, by mutual reproaches, inflamed each other to deeds of valour. They felt the disgrace of yielding to a troop of women, and a band of fanatic priests; they advanced their standards, and rushed on to the attack with impetuous fury. The Britons perished in the flames which they themselves had kindled. The island fell, and a garrison was established to retain it in subjection. The religious groves, dedicated to superstition and barbarous rites, were levelled to the ground. In those recesses, the natives imbrued their altars with the blood of their prisoners, and, in the entrails of men, explored the will of the gods.“—Murphy’s Translation.
[308] It would almost seem that the Gipsies are the people mentioned in Deut. xxxii. 21, and Rom. x. 19, where it is said: “I will provoke you, (the Jews,) to jealousy, by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.” For the history of the Gipsy nation thoroughly burlesques that of the Jews. But the Jews will be very apt to ignore the existence of the present work, should the rest of the world allow them to do it. Yet, excepting the Gipsies themselves, none are so capable of understanding this subject as the Jews, there being so much in it that is applicable to themselves.
[309] This information I obtained from some English Gipsies. Thereafter, the title of the following work came under my notice: “Historical Researches Respecting the Sojourn of the Heathens, or Egyptians, in the Northern Netherlands. By J. Dirks. Edited by the Provincial Utrecht Society of Arts and Sciences. Utrecht: 1850. pp. viii. and 160.”
Indeed, the Gipsies are scattered all over Europe, and are to be found in the condition described in the present work.
[310] There are, probably, 12,000,000 of Jews in the world. I have seen them estimated at from ten to twelve millions. It is impossible to obtain anything like a correct number of the Jews, in almost any country, leaving out of view the immense numbers scattered over the world, and living even in parts unexplored by Europeans.
[311] It is astonishing how superficially some passages of Scripture are interpreted. There is, for instance, the conduct of Gamaliel, before the Jewish council. (Acts v. 17-40.) The advice given by him, as a Pharisee, was nothing but a piece of specious party clap-trap, to discomfit a Sadducee. St. Paul, who was brought up at the feet of this Pharisee, and, doubtless, well versed in the factious tactics of his party, gives a beautiful commentary on the action of his old master, when, on being brought before the same tribunal, and perceiving that his enemies embraced both parties, he set them by the ears, by proclaiming himself a Pharisee, and raising the question, (the “hope and resurrection of the dead,”) on which they so bitterly disagreed. (Acts xxiii. 6-10.) There was much adroitness displayed by the Apostle, in so turning the wrath of his enemies against themselves, after having inadvertently reviled the high priest, in their presence, and within one of the holy places, in such language as the following: “God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten, contrary to the law.” As it was, he was only saved from being “pulled in pieces” by his blood-thirsty persecutors—the one sect attacking, and the other defending him—by a company of Roman soldiers, dispatched to take him by force from among them. Nothing could be more specious than Gamaliel’s reasoning, for it could apply to almost anything, and was well suited to the feelings of a divided and excited assembly; or have less foundation, according to his theory, for the very steps which he advised the people against adopting, for the suppression of Christians, were used to destroy the false Messiahs to whom he referred. And yet people quote this recorded clap-trap of an old Pharisee, as an inspiration, for the guidance of private Christians, and Christian magistrates!
[312] Tacitus makes Caius Cassius, in the time of Nero, say: “At present, we have in our service whole nations of slaves, the scum of mankind, collected from all quarters of the globe; a race of men who bring with them foreign rites, and the religion of their country, or, probably, no religion at all.”—Murphy’s Translation.
[313] The following extract from “Leaves from the Diary of a Jewish Minister,” published in the above-mentioned journal, on the 4th April, 1862, may not be uninteresting to the Christian reader:
“In our day, the conscience of Israel is seldom troubled; it is of so elastic a character, that, like gutta percha, it stretches and is compressed, according to the desire of its owner. We seldom hear of a troubled conscience. . . . . Not that we would assert that our people are without a conscience; we merely state that we seldom hear of its troubles. It is more than probable, that when the latent feeling is aroused on matters of religion, and for a moment they have an idea that ‘their soul is not well,’ they take a homœopathic dose of spiritual medicine, and then feel quite convalescent.”
[315] Petul, according to Mr. Borrow, means a horse-shoe; and Petulengro, a lord of the horse-shoe. It is evidently a very high catch-word among the English Gipsies.
[316] Various of the characters mentioned in Mr. Borrow’s “Lavengro,” and “Romany Rye,” are, beyond doubt, Gipsies. Old Fulcher is termed, in a derisive manner, by Ursula, “a gorgio and basket-maker.” She is one of the Hernes; a family which gorgio and basket-maker Gipsies describe as “an ignorant, conceited set, who think nothing of other Gipsies, owing to the quality and quantity of their own blood.” This is the manner in which the more original and pure and the other kind of English Gipsies frequently talk of each other. The latter will deny that they are Gipsies, at least hide it from the world; and, like the same kind of Scottish Gipsies, speak of the others, exclusively, as Gipsies. I am acquainted with a fair-haired English Gipsy, whose wife, now dead, was a half-breed. “But I am not a Gipsy,” said he to me, very abruptly, before I had said anything that could have induced him to think that I took him for one. He spoke Gipsy, like the others. I soon caught him tripping; for, in speaking of the size of Gipsy families, he slipped his foot, and said: “For example, there is our family; there were (so many) of us.” There is another Gipsy, a neighbour, who passes his wife off to the public as an Irish woman, while she is a fair-haired Irish Gipsy. Both, in short, played upon the word Gipsy; for, as regards fullness of blood, they really were not Gipsies.
The dialogue between the Romany Rye and the Horncastle jockey clearly shows the Gipsy in the latter, when his attention is directed to the figure of the Hungarian. The Romany Rye makes indirect reference to the Gipsies, and the jockey abruptly asks: “Who be they? Come, don’t be ashamed. I have occasionally kept queerish company myself.” “Romany chals! Whew! I begin to smell a rat.” The remainder of the dialogue, and the spree which follows, are perfectly Gipsy throughout, on the part of the jockey; but, like so many of his race, he is evidently ashamed to own himself up to be “one of them.” He says, in a way as if he were a stranger to the language: “And what a singular language they have got!” “Do you know anything of it?” said the Romany Rye. “Only a very few words; they were always chary in teaching me any.” He said he was brought up with the gorgio and basket-maker Fulcher, who followed the caravan. He is described as dressed in a coat of green, (a favourite Gipsy colour,) and as having curly brown or black hair; and he says of Mary Fulcher, whom he married: “She had a fair complexion, and nice red hair, both of which I liked, being a bit of a black myself.” How much this is in keeping with the Gipsies, who so frequently speak of each other, in a jocular way, as “brown and black rascals!”
I likewise claim Isopel Berners, in Lavengro, to be a thumping Gipsy lass, who travelled the country with her donkey-cart, taking her own part, and wapping this one, and wapping that one. It signifies not what her appearance was. I have frequently taken tea, at her house, with a young, blue-eyed, English Gipsy widow, perfectly English in her appearance, who spoke Gipsy freely enough. It did not signify what Isopel said of herself, or her relations. How did she come to speak Gipsy? Do Gipsies teach their language to strangers, and, more especially, to strange women? Assuredly not. Suppose that Isopel was not a Gipsy, but had married a Gipsy, then I could understand how she might have known Gipsy, and yet not have been a Gipsy, except by initiation. But it is utterly improbable that she, a strange woman, should have been taught a word of it.
In England are to be found Gipsies of many occupations; horse-dealers, livery stable-keepers, public-house keepers, sometimes grocers and linen-drapers; indeed, almost every occupation from these downwards. I can readily enough believe an English Gipsy, when he tells me, that he knows of an English squire a Gipsy. To have an English squire a Gipsy, might have come about even in this way: Imagine a rollicking or eccentric English squire taking up with, and marrying, say, a pretty mixed Gipsy bar or lady’s maid, and the children would be brought up Gipsies, for certainty.
There are two Gipsies, of the name of B——, farmers upon the estate of Lord Lister, near Massingham, in the county of Norfolk. They are described as good-sized, handsome men, and swarthy, with long black hair, combed over their shoulders. They dress in the old Gipsy stylish fashion, with a green cut-away, or Newmarket, coat, yellow leather breeches, buttoned to the knee, and top boots, with a Gipsy hat, ruffled breast, and turned-down collar. They occupy the position of any natives in society; attend church, take an interest in parish matters, dine with his lordship’s other tenants, and compete for prizes at the agricultural shows. They are proud of being Gipsies. I have also been told that there are Gipsies in the county of Kent, who have hop farms and dairies.
[317] Bunyan adds: “But, notwithstanding the meanness and inconsiderableness of my parents, it pleased God to put it into their hearts to put me to school, to learn me both to read and write; the which I also attained, according to the rate of other poor men’s children.”
He does not say, “According to the rate of poor men’s children,” but of “other poor men’s children:” a form of expression always used by the Gipsies when speaking of themselves, as distinguished from others. The language used by Bunyan, in speaking of his family, was in harmony with that of the population at large; but he, doubtless, had the feelings peculiar to all the tribe, with reference to their origin and race.
[318] Justice Keeling threatened Bunyan with this fate, even for preaching; for said he: “If you do not submit to go to hear divine service, and leave your preaching, you must be banished the realm: And if, after such a day as shall be appointed you to be gone, you shall be found in this realm, or be found to come over again, without special license from the king, you must stretch by the neck for it. I tell you plainly.”
Sir Matthew Hale tells us that, on one occasion, at the Suffolk assizes, no less than thirteen Gipsies were executed, under the old Gipsy statutes, a few years before the Restoration.
[319] Perhaps the following passage is the one alluded to by this writer: “I often, when these temptations had been with force upon me, did compare myself to the case of such a child, whom some Gipsy hath by force took up in her arms, and is carrying from friend and country.” Grace abounding. The use of a simile like this confirms the fact that Bunyan belonged to the tribe, rather than that he did not; unless we can imagine that Gipsies, when candid, do not what every other race has done—admit the peculiarities of theirs, while in a previous and barbarous state of existence. His admission confirms a fact generally believed, but sometimes denied, as in the case of the writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, mentioned at page 375.
Bunyan, doubtless, “dwelt on it with a sort of spiritual exultation,” that he should have been “called”—not “out of Egypt,” but—“out of the tribe,” when, possibly, no others of it, to his knowledge, had been so privileged; but it was, certainly, “most unlikely” he would say that “he belonged to that class of vagabonds.”
[320] It is interesting to notice what these two writers say. If Bunyan’s father was a Gipsy, we may reasonably assume that his mother was one likewise; and, consequently, that Bunyan was one himself, or as Sir Walter Scott expresses it—a “Gipsy reclaimed.” A Gipsy being a question of race, and not a matter of habits, it should be received as one of the simplest of elementary truths, that once a Gipsy, always a Gipsy. We naturally ask, Why has not the fact of Bunyan having been a Gipsy stood on record, for the last two centuries? and, echo answers, Why?
[321] Although Bunyan probably never anticipated being held in high estimation by what are termed the “great ones” of the earth, yet what Southey has said cannot be predicated of him, if we consider the singularity of his origin and history, and the popularity which he enjoyed, as author of the Pilgrim’s Progress; a work affecting the mind of man in every age of the world. Of this work Bunyan writes:
[322] Bunsen writes: “Sound judgment is displayed rather in an aptness for believing what is historical, than in a readiness at denying it. . . . . . Shallow minds have a decided propensity to fall into the latter error. Incapability of believing on evidence is the last form of the intellectual imbecility of an enervated age.”
A writer who contributes frequently to “Notes and Queries,” after stating that he has read the works of Grellmann and Hoyland on the Gipsies, adds: “My conclusion is that the tribes have no more right to nationality, race, blood, or language, than the London thieves have—with their slang, some words of which may have their origin in the Hebrew, from their dealings with the lowest order of Jews.”
[323] That the rabble, or “fellows of the baser sort,” should have pelted Bunyan with all sorts of offensive articles, when he commenced to preach the gospel, is what could naturally have been expected; but it sounds strange to read what he has put on record of the abuse heaped upon him, by people professing to be the servants of Him “in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female.” See with what Christian humility he alludes to such treatment, as contrasted with the manly indignation which he displayed in repelling slanders. He speaks of “the Lord wiping off such insults at his coming;” when his enemies, with the utmost familiarity and assurance, may approach the judgment-seat, and demand their crowns. “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” And it may be answered unto them: “I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
[324] It is interesting to compare this feeling with that of the lowest order of Spaniards, as described by Mr. Borrow. “The outcast of the prison and the presidio, who calls himself Spaniard, would feel insulted by being termed Gitano, and would thank God that he is not.” Page 386.
[325] Let us suppose that a person, who has read all the works that have hitherto appeared on the Gipsies, and noticed the utter absence, in them, of everything of the nature of a philosophy of the subject, thoroughly masters all that is set forth in the present work. The knowledge which he then possesses puts him in such a position, that he approximates to being one of the tribe, himself; that is, if all that is contained therein be known to him and the tribe, only, it would enable him to pass current, in certain circles of Gipsydom, as one of themselves.
[326] There is a point which I have not explained so fully as I might have done, and it is this: “Is any of the blood ever lost? that is, does it ever cease to be Gipsy, in knowledge and feeling?” That is a question not easily answered in the affirmative, were it only for this reason: how can it ever be ascertained that the knowledge and feeling of being Gipsies become lost? Let us suppose that a couple of Gipsies leave England, and settle in America, and that they never come in contact with any of their race, and that their children never learn anything of the matter from any quarter. (Page 413.) In such an extreme, I may say, such an unnatural, case, the children would not be Gipsies, but, if born in America, ordinary Americans. The only way in which the Gipsy blood—that is, the Gipsy feeling—can possibly be lost, is by a Gipsy, (a man especially,) marrying an ordinary native, (page 381,) and the children never learning of the circumstance. But, as I have said before, how is that ever to be ascertained? The question might be settled in this way: Let the relatives of the Gipsy interrogate the issue, and if it answers, truly, that it knows nothing of the Gipsy connexion, and never has its curiosity in the matter excited, it holds, beyond dispute, that “the blood” has been lost to the tribe. For any loss the tribe may sustain, in that way, it gains, in an ample degree, by drawing upon the blood of the native race, and transmuting it into that of its own fraternity.
[327] It was the nature of man, in ancient times, as it is with the heathen to-day, to worship what could not be understood; while modern civilization seems to attribute such phenomena to miracles. It is even presumptuous to have recourse to such an alternative, for the enquirer may be deficient in the intellect necessary to prosecute such investigations, or he may not be in possession of sufficient data. If the European will, for example, ask himself, 1stly: what is the idea which he has of a Gipsy? 2ndly: what are the feelings which he entertains for him personally? And 3dly: what must be the response of the Gipsy to the sentiments of the other? he cannot avoid coming to the conclusion, that the race should “marry among themselves,” and that, “let them be in whatever situation of life they may, they all” should “stick to each other.” (Page 369.)
[328] Viewing the Gipsies as they are described in this work, and contrasting their history with that of the nations of the world in general, and the Jews in particular, and considering that they have no religion peculiar to themselves, yet are scattered among, and worked into, all nations, but not acknowledged by, or even known to, others, we may, with the utmost propriety, call them, in the language of the prophet, “no people,” and a “foolish nation;” yet by no means a nation of fools, but rather more rogues than fools. Of all the ways in which the Gipsies have hoaxed other people, the manner in which they have managed to throw around themselves a sense of their non-existence to the minds of others, is the most remarkable.
[329] The prejudice of their fellow-creatures is a sufficiently potent cause, in itself, to preserve the identity of the Gipsy tribe in the world. It has made it to resemble an essence, hermetically sealed. Keep it in that position, and it retains its inherent qualities undiminished; but uncork the vessel containing it, and it might (I do not say it would) evaporate among the surrounding elements.
[330] The MS. of this work has undergone many vicissitudes. Among others, it may be mentioned that, in the state in which it was left by the author, it was twice lost, and once stolen; on which last occasion it was recovered, at an expense of one shilling! Then the original copy, in its present form, was stolen, and never recovered. In both instances did that happen under circumstances that such a fate was most unlikely to befall it. Then a copy of it was sent to Scotland, and never acknowledged, although I am in hopes it is now on its return, after a lapse of nearly three years; in which case, I will be more fortunate than the author, who gave the MS. to an individual and never got, and never could get, it back.